


This Was Normal

by Pumpkin_Milk



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: And love, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, M/M, This is just a late night one shot, and get some proper rest, can be seen as platonic kind of, these boys just need to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pumpkin_Milk/pseuds/Pumpkin_Milk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was either the dregs that clung to Jay's throat or the light that sunk upon Tim. Whichever one started it, it doesn't matter. Because this was normal now, and that's all they needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Was Normal

Sometimes, it feels like the moisture from the tunnels, forests, motels, and gas stations cling to the sides of Jay’s throat. It’s not like water that drips down and slides cold. The moisture is thicker, lukewarm or just hot all together. It clings and grows like mold and stays almost as a reminder. A reminder that seems to hiss in his ear. He’s not getting anywhere with his investigation, not really. Even when it is moving, it seems like he’s just digging himself into a hole he can’t climb out of.  
In another sense, he can see the same thing happening to Tim. Albeit, in a different way. When he looks to Tim, it looks like the light and shadows grip onto his skin. It can be the harsh neon lights advertising beer at a late night gas station staining the side of his face, or the shadows of leaves creeping across his hair and back. Or maybe just the barely there streaks of orange that find their way through motel blinds at the dead of night, sliding down his neck and jaw.  
He wonders if Tim notices it, the light and shadows sinking under his skin, only to rise back on top. If they meant anything to him. Jay knew that the shorter of the two was aware of the thick fog that clung to his throat. Because there were nights where his separate bed felt too empty, and Tim would pad across the cheap motel carpet to lay next to him. Not do anything else besides lay there.  
Well, usually.  
There were other nights, where the pressure in his throat would grow, making him feel far too awake. Too aware of every noise in the room. Jay’s breath would pick up, only to have Tim lay next to him, nose pressed to his adams apple. His breath was steady and warm, lips ghosting the skin. Tim kept his eyes closed, focusing on breathing like normal.  
Something like that, in another world, would cause different reactions than the one it received. Maybe moving back for more space, questioning, arousal. Probably just about anything that wasn’t the weight lifting off of his chest, clearing the moisture from his throat and letting it be filled with air and only air. At least for the night.  
Tim would lay there, and eventually fall asleep in the position that he started with. It was more of an experience to Jay than just a sight. The yellow and orange lights that slipped through the closed (always closed) blinds would fall onto him, highlighting only strips of Tim. A bit of his hair, the middle of his nose, an eyelid, his lips, and strips of an old band shirt peeking up from under the starchy motel blankets. Everything else in the room was so dark that it was almost non-existent, save for the blinking red light of a camera on the far side of the room. All he could hear was the old air conditioner and the cars that still prattled by, sounding out of time with their soft breathing.  
It all smelled like cigarettes and cheap shampoo.  
Finally, Jay’s eyes would start to grow heavy again, and he’d will them shut. The typical foggy sensation that accompanied sleep would cloud his head, and he would allow himself to drift off to sleep. If he ever had any dreams he didn’t remember them. Maybe that was for the best.  
It’s easy, almost too easy to fall asleep like this. In a motel during the early hours of the morning, next to a man who probably tolerated him at best. But Tim needed this just as much as Jay. He understood. So they would sleep, faking normality in a world that was starting to lose all of the sense that it originally had in it. This was fine.  
This was normal.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this really was just a one shot that I banged out at 2 in the morning whilst rewatching Marble Hornets. The locations and the atmospheres in the series really were great, so I wanted to write about atmosphere and settings in my own round about way.


End file.
